By James Riley Strange, Ph.D.
Professor of New Testament, Samford University
SURE OF VICTORY
1 John 3:19–4:4
Probably all of 1 John should be read in light of Jesus’ love commandment (John 13:34).
Perhaps Alabama Baptists could make 1 John 3:18 our mission statement: “Let us love, not in word or speech, but in work and truth.”
We have victory over doubt. (3:19–22)
By speaking of “hearts,” John returns to what his readers “know” (2:3–6; 20–29).
In John’s Bible (our Old Testament), “heart” often includes both intellect and emotions (1 Kings 8:48); it is where God writes His commands (Ps. 37:31; Ezek. 36:26), which are both known and loved.
This is probably how John uses the term, for the heart can “condemn” or “convict” us as in a law court. This self-conviction does not have final authority, however. God, who knows everything, is greater.
John has mentioned God’s knowledge of the human capacity for repentance (1:9); our advocate, Jesus Christ the righteous (2:1); and Jesus’ atoning sacrifice (2:2; 4:10). In God’s presence, we in turn can have “confidence” (2:28; 4:17), a term that refers to frank speech.
John is talking about prayers of petition: We have confidence that God will grant what we ask.
This happens because if “we obey God’s commandments and do what pleases Him,” we ask for what pleases God rather than for what pleases ourselves. We pray as Jesus did, “Thy will be done” (Matt. 6:10; 26:39–44).
We have victory because we remain in Jesus, and He remains in us. (3:23–24)
John ties the love commandment to faith in Jesus. In Greek, “believe” and “faith” have the same root, whereas English has one word for the verb and another for the noun. Therefore, most translations say, “believe in the name of His Son,” whereas John means not only assent to a truth (he talks about that in 2:21 and 4:2) but also faithful obedience to God’s Son, who commanded us to love one another.
Verse 24, which is almost identical to 4:13, again takes up the metaphor of living or abiding (2:6, 24, 28; 3:6, 17; 24; 4:12–17).
When John says the person who obeys Jesus’ love commandment lives in Jesus Christ and He in turn lives in that person, he switches from the collective language of 2:24–26 (the congregation) to individual language (the believer).
Is there a more powerful way to talk about the immediacy of Christ? We are both immersed in and filled by “the Spirit that He has given us.” Why then does obedience evade us?
We have victory because Jesus has conquered the world. (4:1–4)
John’s answer is to acknowledge the ease with which false prophets lure people. After all, if the Spirit of Christ lives in us now, why should we think that Christ came in the flesh once upon a time?
Those who claimed to see and touch Him were tricked by an illusion. Not so, says John. To deny Christ’s body is to deny the reality of the problem of sin, which Christ came into the world to solve through His death (2:1–2).
Furthermore, it is to ignore Christ’s love command, which we fulfill when we “with actions and in truth” meet the bodily needs of our brothers and sisters (3:16–18).
He who lives in us is “greater than our hearts,” which condemn from within, and “greater than the one who is the world,” who deceives from without.
Deceivers can be liars (2:22) or sincere. Either way, it is our job to “test the spirits to see whether they are from God.” For John, that test is to ask, “Do these teachings result in acts of love for the whole person, or do they treat the person as if the body doesn’t matter?”
According to John, as God loves and provides for both soul and body, so should we.
Thanks be to God.
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